Abortion: A 'right' that is wrong? (two theses for debate)

[Al B. Sure!]

There are basically two debates concerning abortion:

Thesis:

An adult woman's rights as a citizen of the United States are superior to those of a fetus.

Agree; An adult woman who is a citizen of the United States is controlled by the laws and rights of the nation. The right to abort her child is gaurenteed by Roe vs. Wade. A fetus, not being a citizen, does not possess the rights of government persecution of its murder. The "Rights of Man", unofficially assured to all individuals do not exist for a being that is not born.


Thesis 2:

When a fetus is aborted, the general good has been served as the fetus would not have any worthwhile life being the child of a woman who lacks economic oppurtunities brought on by pregnancy and being forced to raise a child.

Disagree; I have posted a thread concerning statistics (I can repost them) that show clearly that the majority of abortions are done by women over 21 years of age and the majority of abortions by women under that age are done by 17-21 year olds (who are capable of raising a child). Abortions themselves cost a great deal of money up front (examine any abortion clinic's internet site). Thus, though early teenagers and those who are truly poor should not be forced to have children, most abortions are done by women who are not under said constraints. Simply put, businesswomen have abortions out of convenience, not crack addicts.


thanks

[MrFun]

Albert, a woman would not make a decison on mere convenience when she considers the psychological, physical, and social trauma of going through an abortion -- regardless of what class she is.

As for my opinion on abortion, I believe in restricted abortion that is legal under the following conditions:

1) rape

2) endangerment of the pregnant woman's life

3) incest

[Lung]

Originally posted by MrFun
Albert, a woman would not make a decison on mere convenience when she considers the psychological, physical, and social trauma of going through an abortion -- regardless of what class she is.

As for my opinion on abortion, I believe in restricted abortion that is legal under the following conditions:

1) rape

2) endangerment of the pregnant woman's life

3) incest

Stop talking sense! I'm not used to it from you

[David Floyd]

The thing is, there is no viable argument for outlawing abortion unless the fetus can be medically/scientifically defined as a living human, which AFAIK it isn't. Dr. Strangelove? Other doctors? Care to comment?

[Al B. Sure!]

Mr. Fun:

Albert, a woman would not make a decison on mere convenience when she considers the psychological, physical, and social trauma of going through an abortion

The fifth time aint a trauma... but I should try to find statistics concerning how many women have had previous abortions...


but I agree with your conditions. Note that I believe the act of abortion is not murder yet I feel that most abortions are done for illegitamite reasons. I support abortion in case of those reasons as well as if the child truly won't have a good life. It's an arbritary standard, I know, but the State has taken children away from their parents when they're deemed to be unfit. Use the same standard for allowing abortions.


thanks

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Lung


Stop talking sense! I'm not used to it from you

Glad to know you're stalking me.

If you participate in this thread, try to avoid the strawman, slippery slope, and emotive language fallacies.

[Lung]

Originally posted by MrFun


Glad to know you're stalking me.

Dream on

If you participate in this thread, try to avoid the strawman, slippery slope, and emotive language fallacies.

BTW, what is the dreaded strawman i keep reading about? Is it like an argument without foundation or something? As for "emotive language", i like my smilies

[faded glory]

Strawmen are flammable little ******

When I was adolescant. Some friends and I put a ciggarrete in a scarecrow hand on halloween. BOOM! Run.. Hide in the woods for a few hours till the cops left.

[David Floyd]

Personally, I prefer cow-tipping, but different folks different strokes I suppose

[MrFun]

strawman argument fallacy: attacks a weakened form of an opponent's argument or an argument not advanced by an opponent

slippery slope fallacy: assumes, without evidence, that a given event is first in a series of steps that will lead to some outcome


emotive language fallacy: manipulates connotative meaning of words to establish a claim without proof

I would be disgusted if you were stalking me.

[Al B. Sure!]

god damn... no one wants to debate? do i have to do what Floyd did and debate myself?

[connorkimbro]

I've said it before, and i'll say it again (mostly because i just like to stir things up a bit) that I do not consider whether or not the fetus is "alive" or not to have any bearing on abortions legality. To me, whether the fetus is alive or not is NOT an issue.

Chew on that.

[David Floyd]

But if the fetus is a living human how is abortion not murder?

[connorkimbro]

IMO, just because the fetus may be living, doesn't mean that the abortion is unjustified. In which case it would not be murder.

[Giant_Squid]

Thesis: An adult woman's rights as a citizen of the United States are superior to those of a fetus.

Agree, but we're not talking a one-to-one right correspondence here. The rights of an American citizen in the US are superior to those of a foreigner, but that doesn't mean the citizen can kill the foreigner. While that's a bad analogy, what I'm trying to say is that we're talking about the right of the woman to make a choice, whereas we're talking about the right of the fetus to live, so while the woman's rights may be more important, we're talking about a more important specific right in the fetus' case. Personally, though, I think all this "right" junk just complicates the whole discussion and we should just worry about which is the morally correct course to take.

Thesis 2:
When a fetus is aborted, the general good has been served as the fetus would not have any worthwhile life being the child of a woman who lacks economic oppurtunities brought on by pregnancy and being forced to raise a child.

I'm not sure what you mean...by general good do you mean the good of the fetus or the good of society. If the former, then there's always the cliched (but only because it's so true) argument that the mother could put the kid up for adoption and that, in my opinion, a bad life is probably better than no life at all (and if you're about to disagree, explain why you haven't committed suicide yet). If the latter, it never hurts society to have an extra contributing member.